


Liquefying Enzymes

by MA477LL



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-17 11:26:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9321395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MA477LL/pseuds/MA477LL
Summary: Maggie and Alex investigate a new case. Their relationship is put to the test.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of Sanvers angst, but please don't worry.

Maggie Sawyer is 5’5.

Mind you, in good shoes. And these? These black ankle boots are her very best ones. Real leather, too. The kind she cannot really afford.

 _Were_. She amends mentally as she kicks at the floor. These _were_ her best shoes.

Whatever is the substance that the unidentified alien lying in the back alley of CatCo Worlwide Media has bled into the pavement, it is dissolving the sole of her left shoe.

_Damn it._

Not just that, the rain that has been pouring down on National City for the last week is quickly erasing what is left of her crime scene. God only knows how long the victim has been lying out here. They need to get working.

She looks around. There are two uniformed police officers at the scene.

_Why is nobody else here yet. Where are the reporters from CatCo?_

Maggie is not a scientist, but she knows what to look for, what needs to be preserved, and fast. They are not properly trained for this, but maybe she can get the uniforms to help, attempt to save as much as possible without contaminating the scene any further. She looks for the young officer that showed her the corpse, Frank Merry. Nice kid. She knows Frank Merry, Sr., a well-respected cop in the force. But Frank is inside the patrol car that is blocking the entry to the alley: calling in the crime, presumably.

She turns towards the other officer who is finishing setting up a perimeter around the body. He turns just then, making eye contact.

Maggie sighs and rocks back a bit into her feet, widening her stance.

_Great._

Just her luck: it is officer Rivers.

She takes a moment to look up into the quickly darkening sky, letting the rain pour over her as a small shiver runs down her back.

She checks her watch. It is 4:48 PM. It will be fully dark soon.

She thinks wishfully about her rain jacket, nicely folded in the back seat of her car.

_Dry._

Thanks to the rain there are only a few onlookers nosing around, curious to see a dead body. Rivers finishes with the yellow police tape and walks towards her, sly grin in place.

He is around 40. Tall and strongly built. Dark hair.

 _Asshole_.

“Hey, Sanchez,” he smiles malevolently at her, “I see you still get all the shitty alien cases.” He shrugs his large shoulders as he points his thumb at the dead corpse. “From one alien to another, and all that, I guess, right?”

Maggie smiles back, maintaining eye contact. “And I see you’re still handling all the important details, like cleaning crime scenes for me,” she reaches into her jeans pocket and digs out her car keys, dangling them in front of him. “My car may need detailing, if you get a minute after you finish all your important policing, I parked it down the road.” She turns to point, “it’s the one with the Detective Sawyer tags.”

He steps closer, bowing down until his face is close to hers, “you’re not such a big deal, Sanchez, fuck you.”

She gives him a lazy one-over, “nah, you’re too girly even for me,” she says and starts to turn away from him and towards the dead alien, effectively dismissing him. “Now, can anyone around here actually _do_ some honest police work?”

He grabs her arm to stop her from moving away. It is a strong grip, but Maggie has not made it this far in the police force without facing a few entitled idiots.

No wonder she never did well with partners.

She rolls her eyes. _Why are male egos so delicate_?

“I’m busy, Rivers,” she says as she takes out her phone with her free arm and scrolls through her contacts. “Do something useful.”

He squeezes her arm for a few seconds longer, increasing the strength of his grip.

Maggie just looks at him with a bored expression until he finally lets go and turns towards officer Merry and the patrol car.

She moves the phone to her ear just as the line connects on the other end.

“Hey, Sawyer.”

Maggie smiles when she hears the voice. “Hey, Danvers. Want to see a dead body?”

xxx

Unfortunately, by the time Alex Danvers and her team arrive at the crime scene, the rain has wiped the scene almost entirely clean.

 _Do not_ ask Maggie about it. It has _something_ to do with micro-particles in the blood of the unidentified female alien mixing up with the water and dissolving into untraceable electrolytes?

Yeah, whatever. So she did not understand it. That is what _she_ got.

Truth be told, she is just half awed, half trying to stop herself from making moon eyes at Alex Danvers, as she explains her the scientific details. Not that Maggie is an idiot, but Alex is just in a league of her own when it comes to smarts.

 _When it comes to a few other things, too_. Maggie thinks ruefully as she catches herself not very discreetly sneaking another look at Alex’s chest.

 _Focus, girl_. The dissolved electrolytes mumbo jumbo _is_ important.

It is the only clue they have right now, and also, the reason why she is at the DEO; seated on a stretcher in Alex’s lab, in her ridiculous socks and drying her hair with a borrowed towel.

Her t-shirt is soaked through, and her jeans feel stiff, but they are thankfully dark, so she hopes Alex will not notice. She does not want to attempt to strip out of them. She has some dignity left, and she knows that in a fight between wet denim and herself, the jeans would _win_.

“The leather in your boots saved some residue, I think there may even be traces of tissue,” Alex smiles proudly at her as she cuts into her boots.

“Seriously?” Maggie rolls her eyes. It is not like she can take credit for her boots’ achievements.

“Yeah, there is definitely blood and also-,”

Winn steps into the lab, interrupting. “Hey, Alex. Detective Sawyer.”

“Winn,” Maggie nods.

Alex waves him over. “I’m getting a few samples from Maggie’s boots, Winn. Here,” she says as she hands him one. “Put this through the spectrometer, please? I believe there’s blood in it. If you match it against our database, we should at the very least get a good idea of what species she was,” she points at Maggie’s ruined boots. “While you do that I’ll work on this sample, try to reverse engineer the liquefying enzyme.”

Winn nods at Alex and smiles at Maggie before departing, “we’ll figure out whatever was in the blood of your Jane Dolien, detective.”

Maggie nods distractedly as he exits the lab, her eyes on what is left of her shoes. “Did you really have to cut them?”

“I did.”

“Those were my best boots.”

“I know. You’ve said. The DEO _will_ reimburse you.”

Maggie pouts, “it’s just, I- I bought them as kind of a present to myself, you know? It’s not like anyone else was around to celebrate when I made it to detective a couple of years back," she rolls her eyes at the ceiling, "and so most of a pay check went into them. I usually cannot afford such nice-,” she flushes as she notices Alex regarding her seriously. She rewinds mentally, a bit startled to have revealed so much without meaning to.

Alex is also startled if she can go by the concerned look on her face.

“Anyway, don’t think I didn’t hear Winn calling her Jane Dolien,” she smirks, “you guys are such nerds.”

Alex smiles and winks at her, accepting the change in topic and intensity, but filing away all the information Maggie just gave her. Then, she turns back to her screen, as the first results start loading. Her face shifts into a look Maggie has seen before. It is her ‘what does this interesting finding mean’ look.

“I’ve seen this before,” she whispers quietly as she points at something in the screen. “These proteins here,” she quickly types a query into her database, hitting intro. The screen splits, one half showing the initial results, the other half searching for a match.

Maggie gets off the stretcher and walks to stand by her side. “Well,” she tilts her head, “it looks a bit like my 8th grade science project,” a breath. “I got a C.”

She feels her toes curling. “Geez, the floor is freezing.”

“We keep the lab at 56 Fahrenheit degrees, to best preserve all sample tissues,” Alex says. “The refrigerating system runs under the tiles of the-,” she looks up sharply, and then down, staring at Maggie’s orange and blue stripped socks. “Cute socks, Sawyer, but you are not wearing any shoes.”

“Sharp eyes, Danvers.” Maggie jokes, “I can see why they let you run around with the big guns.” She points at the table behind Alex. “Need I remind you that you just performed a rather uninspired tracheotomy on my best boots?” She fakes a pout. “I think I liked them better than most of the people I work with.”

“Here,” Alex says as she pushes her own chair towards Maggie and grabs her arm to guide her to it, “at least take a seat while I find you some shoes.”

_Ow. That hurts._

Maggie steps away awkwardly, trying to get Alex’s fingers off her arm.

Alex lets go of Maggie’s arm, a bit tentative, now. She regards Maggie carefully.

_You are too brash, Alex. Stop manhandling her._

Alex bites her lip. It will take a while to figure Maggie out.

It did not take long for Alex to realise that Maggie was unexpectedly complex, for all she presented herself like an open book.

There are layers over layers over layers. Alex feels like she has barely scratched at the surface of who Maggie is in these last few months. Also, her lack of experience with women, well, with relationships, really, weights on Alex at times like these.

“Hey, I’m sorry about your boots,” her voice comes out softer than before. More intimate. Whatever is going on, it is _not_ about the boots, she knows that much, but this is the one thing Alex feels secure in saying.

Maggie just waves her hand and takes a seat. She gives Alex a soft smile. “Never mind that, I’m just being a baby.”

Then, she looks down, breaking eye contact, fumbling with her phone.

Maggie is not yet used to the way Alex looks at her. She wonders if she will ever be.

It seems to her that she has spent her whole life split between wanting to be invisible and shoving her face at every single person who ever discriminated against her for not fitting whatever bland white and straight mould they wanted her to fit.

And now? Now it is disconcerting, because Maggie thought she knew herself well, and yet. And yet. She certainly did not know how badly she wanted to be _seen_ by Alex Danvers.

She just needs to silence the nagging concern that Alex will eventually see something to dislike.

xxx

It is almost 11PM when they finally leave the DEO. Alex starting two additional queries and finding no results in any of them.

“What are you hoping to find?” Maggie asks as she puts on her coat.

“I’ve seen this before.” Alex says stubbornly. She pushes her hair behind her ears. “It just looks so much like-," she shakes her head "no, that cannot be. It has to be _somewhere_ in the database.”

“Well, if we’re leaving for the night, why not do a “search all” or something? Is that even possible?”

Alex scrunches up her brow, then turns towards the computer and types for few seconds.

As they leave the office, Maggie can see the search screen back on, again running through the database.

xxx

They go to Alex’s, and turn in for the night quite early. Maggie still cold from the miserable afternoon in the rain and freezing her ass off at the DEO.

During the last few weeks, Maggie has slowly moved quite a few of her things to Alex's apartment. Just small things that seem to never make their way back to her own apartment. They have not talked about it, but she spends almost all weekends there. Sometimes, off days during the week, too, if they are working a case together. Maggie does not have a lot of things. Her jeans and t-shirts, her trusty leather jacket. She is not a hoarder, much the opposite is true, in fact.

Live light and all that, like you may be kicked out any minute.

But one thing she is definitely considering is buying Alex a warmer duvet. Alex's pyjamas may be cute and comfortable, but they cover her like she is a nun.

 _There is nothing wrong with a bit of skin_. Maggie thinks. She is hoping her reverse psychology war on Alex’s pyjamas will eventually pay off. She herself is only wearing a loose tank top and panties to bed. No bra.

“Turn around?” Alex asks. “I want to hold you.”

“Sap,” Maggie jokes with a smile, but turns to lay on her left side, facing the window. She feels Alex move, spooning her from behind. The feel of Alex’s breasts against her back sends a hot shiver down Maggie’s body.

Alex moves Maggie’s hair out of the way and kisses her neck slowly.

“I thought you wanted to sleep,” Maggie says, voice rough. She is ten seconds away from turning around and throwing herself on top of Alex.

“Ssshhh,” Alex says, and kisses her neck again. But somehow, this time is different, and the kiss soothes her. Maggie feels Alex shifting, an elbow settling in the pillow behind her head, so that Alex can lift herself and lean over Maggie.

“When did you get this?”

“Get what?”

Alex pushes her fingers into the bruises on her upper arm.

“Ow,” Maggie looks at her arm. “Oh, right,” she mumbles, “must have bumped into something.”

“Something with the shape of a hand?”

Maggie just shrugs. Alex waits a few seconds, then lowers herself again, hugging Maggie tightly to her. “You can tell me.”

They are silent for a bit.

Just when Alex thinks Maggie is not going to say anything, she speaks.

“Rivers.”

“What about rivers?” she pokes Maggie gently on the side, “I swear if you make any more lame jokes about how I was the most oblivious lesbian on National City and how the Nile 'ain't just a river in Egypt,' I’ll do something drastic, Sawyer.”

Maggie laughs. “No, no. I mean officer Rivers.”

“Officer Rivers?”

“Yeah, he was one of my first partners out of the academy, we have a-, we go way back. We just-, well, I guess you could say we don’t get along.”

Alex squeezes her arms gently around Maggie, not interrupting.

“He was at the crime scene today. And, well, he grabbed my arm, I guess a little harder than I thought.”

“He grabbed you?” Alex whispers, rubbing her fingers over Maggie’s forearm, gently caressing, “he must have grabbed you really hard to leave marks.”

There is a bit of steel in Alex’s voice. Something dangerous.

It makes Maggie shiver, goose bumps raising in her arms. She reaches down to grab Alex’s hand and moves it to her mouth, kissing her knuckles. “Hey, he didn’t hurt me, ok?”

Alex moves her legs, so that she is completely flush against Maggie’s body. “Not ok.”

Maggie turns herself so that she is fully cocooned in Alex’s arms. “I’m fine, ok? I have assholes like Rivers for breakfast.”

Alex gives her a soft kiss. “We’ll see.”

“Danvers.”

“Sawyer.”

Maggie smiles and kisses Alex again. “Go to sleep, you wonder woman.”

Alex gives a quiet laugh and snuggles into Maggie, “goodnight.”

She will have Winn do a full check on this Rivers scumbag first thing tomorrow. Use her DEO influence to send him to Gotham to clean toilets or something.

She smiles as she burrows her face into Maggie’s hair.

Maybe she can ask Kara to kick him off the planet.

xxx

She is dreaming about sunshine. Alex is with her, are they at the south beach? Maybe Miami? And why is Alex’s bikini _ringing_?

“Wha-,” Maggie says as she wakes up, her hand finding rapidly cooling sheets.

“Sssh,” Alex says. “I was just on the phone with Winn. We have a match.”

Maggie regards her. Alex looks pale. “You ok?”

“Yeah, just- I, I have to go,” she rushes around the room, getting dressed. Her movements are jerky. She slams closed the wardrobe door. “Just lock the door when you leave?” a pause, a breath. She turns towards Maggie, gives her a half smile, “don’t skip breakfast, huh?”

Maggie shakes her head. “Cross my heart.”

xxx

Maggie does not see Alex again that day. She sends her a few messages on telegram, which go unopened. She also calls her once, but it goes straight to voicemail.

It _gets_ to her.

More than she would like to admit. She is so annoyed that she ends up putting her phone away, stashing it into a drawer.

She is bored and frustrated. She cannot make much headway without Alex. Whatever evidence there is: the body of the dead alien, her _freaking_ boots, they all are at the DEO offices. She has been there a few times, always with Alex. But she refuses to go now. She does not want to appear like she is stalking her _own_ girlfriend.

It upsets her that she has become so used to having Alex Danvers embedded into her life that she can obviously not go even a few hours without communicating with her.

She gives up on pushing paperwork around her desk at 2.30pm. That is when she decides to go to CatCo. Ask a few questions, see if there are any employees missing. Someone must have seen _something_.

 _Get out of your funk, Sawyer_.

The fact that she may run into Kara Danvers and ask her about Alex does _not_ cross her mind.

No more than five times, anyway.

xxx

She ends the day at what Alex had not so kindly called her ‘dive bar.’ Was that almost five months ago? She asks the bartender for M’gann.

“Her shift starts in an hour.”

Maggie can wait. It is not like she has anywhere else to go.

“Thanks, I’ll have a beer, whatever you have on tap is fine,” she slips him a twenty. If Maggie has learnt anything in her ten odd years in the force is that it never hurts to be on bartenders’ good books.

She sighs as she takes a sip of the beer. “Nice.” She commends the bartender’s choice.

Her whole day has been unproductive.

Nobody at CatCo had seen anything.

Nobody at CatCo was missing, except for Kara Danvers, who has not shown up to work today.

Nobody at CatCo seemed surprised or bothered enough to call her either, as apparently she often misses days of work. She seems to come and go pretty much as she pleases, being a reporter and all. Always rushing out the door to pursue a story.

Except Maggie has read Kara’s articles, at Alex’s urging and also, to grovel a bit and make nice with the sister Alex seems to love more than anyone else in her life. And, somehow, it does not appear to Maggie that most of Kara’s articles require rushing out of the office to get an exclusive or to uncover a scandal.

There is something about the whole thing that tickles at Maggie’s brain. Something that does not add up, or perhaps something that _adds up_. She shrugs her shoulders as she grabs her beer and takes a long swallow.

It will come to her; eventually.

For now, she lets the back of her head do the thinking.

In fact, she much prefers to stare morosely at her phone as she waits for M’gann’s shift to start. Not a single call or message from Alex. She is not sure _why_ , but she is definitely being ignored.

 _Great_.

M'gann does not know anything about a dead alien. Whoever she was, she did not frequent the usual circles. Maybe she had just arrived to National City.

By the time Maggie gets home she is a full funk.

 _Alex Danvers had better call her tomorrow_.

xxx

When she gets to the station early the following morning, the file she opened on the case is gone. She feels her pulse spike. Her computer has been wiped out of any information about the case. No pictures, no details. She calls the tech guys down in floor 3, but they cannot find any files on the system, nor any attacks to their servers.

"What the hell is this."

Maggie hangs up slowly, looks over her shoulder, suddenly paranoid. Whatever is happening here just got much more serious.

This is not Maggie's first rodeo.

Something _big_ is happening.

She tries to call Alex, but again gets sent to voicemail. She does not bother with a message. Who knows who else may be listening in. She rises slowly from her chair and grabs her leather jacket.

This is freaking her out a little. She needs to tell Alex, she might be in danger if somebody is out there, looking to erase the evidence.

Time to head over to the DEO.

She no longer cares if she appears like an over-zealous girlfriend. Let them dare to even raise an eyebrow her way.

"Agent Danvers is not at the premises, currently. I'm afraid I cannot give you access, Detective Sawyer," says a disembodied voice over the intercom.

Maggie swears it is Winn.

“Winn, let me in."

The connection breaks, whoever is on the other side has hung up on her. She calls again, but nobody answers. She turns towards the camera, high up on the ceiling, hands moving to her hips.

“Right. I see how it is."

xxx

A large part of being a successful detective is being patient. Listening. Waiting. Letting others come to her. Criminals make mistakes, they get nervous. They go back to their crime scenes. Leave clues.

When Alex Danvers leaves the DEO offices at 2AM, Maggie is waiting for her, seated in her car, sipping coffee. She turns on the lights and makes it obvious that she is following Alex. Maggie wonders where she is going and how long she will drive, but they stop just a few blocks away from the DEO, parking on an empty street.

She has been waiting in her car for almost 10 hours by this point. She has had time to be angry, to be worried, even to feel a bit sorry for herself. She has been stuck on level 740 of Candy Crush for most of the evening. When she walks to Alex's car and seats herself on the passenger side, she is eerily calm.

"Maggie."

Maggie looks at her. She cannot see much in the dim light of the car, but enough to notice that Alex looks tired, black circles under her eyes.

There is a pinched look on Alex’s face. It almost looks-, Maggie shifts mental gears quickly: from worried to suspicious.

Because the look on Alex’s face? It screams of _guilt_.

"Danvers."

Alex winces. She rubs a hand over her forehead. It is never good when Maggie uses that tone _and_ calls her by her last name.

"Look, I'm sorry, ok? I-, the case-, well, Supergirl, really," a big huff. "I'm just-," Alex looks at her, eyes pleading for a moment. "Just-, just trust me on this, can you do that? I need to work, but I'm so tired. I have to sleep."

She is rambling badly. Not making sense. It pulls at Maggie’s strings, and she considers for a moment whether it is safe for Alex to be driving.

She softens somewhat, "I don't understand. What’s happening?" Maggie tilts her head to the side, trying to get a good look. Alex looks drawn. She tries to be understanding. "How can I help?"

"You cannot. Look, Maggie, I'm sorry, but I need to do this on my own. Please back off? Let us work on the case at the DEO."

Sudden comprehension downs on Maggie. "It was _you_ ,” she accuses, pointing a finger at Alex, “did your people wipe out my files? I've been so worried about you for nothing. This is _my_ case-"

"It's _not_."

Maggie's eyebrows rise in surprise. 

"This case is _mine_. You know I can pull rank on you on this. Don't make me do it," Alex pleads. "Please."

Maggie is silent for a long time. She looks out of the window. It is a cold night. There are clouds of smoke coming out of the gutters down the street.

She is not wanted here, obviously.

"Fine. It's your call."

It hurts. She wants _in_. In Alex's mind, in her life, in her cases.

"Maggie, I'm sorry. We'll talk once I figure this out, ok? This is important,” Alex turns pleading eyes her way, a hand reaching out to touch Maggie’s arm.

"Sure," Maggie gives her a smile as she pulls away. "Just call me whenever, Danvers."

If she closes the car door with more force than strictly necessary, she feels entirely justified.

xxx


	2. Chapter 2

The enzyme that dissolved the evidence comes from Kara’s blood.

That is the gist of the call Alex gets.

“Calm down, Winn. Just run it again to be sure. I’m on my way,” she tells him as soon as she is out of the flat.

As she rides the elevator, she regrets leaving Maggie, alone in her bed, and wonders whether she should enlist her help. Maggie is a great detective. The best she has worked with. She is sharp, knows her way around National City, and would definitely be of help. But Alex is in a hurry and she does not really know what evidence awaits for her at the DEO offices.

 _She_  may be well on her way to trusting Maggie with her heart; but this is  _not_  her secret to tell.

And when it comes down to it, the one truth that is unshakeable in Alex’s life is that her sister  _comes first_. This is a fact so deeply ingrained into who she is, that her mind long ago fell into the habit of sorting through her life issues just to immediately rank them as petty and unimportant: necessarily below Kara’s.

Kara’s well-being simply matters more than anything else.

Their lives’ purposes are so intertwined that it is difficult for Alex to think of a future where she features as an individual, and not as part of a sisterhood.  

She is startled when the elevator pings loudly as it reaches the ground floor. 

She  _has_  to find Kara, figure out what is going on.

Then, she can take care of her own life.

Talk to Maggie.

It is only a small hiatus. A brief pause. Probably just a few hours, anyway.

No big deal, right?

But it is not easy to dismiss the image of Maggie from her mind, because the weight of Kara’s secret has pressed and pressed into her own life, slowly flattening it into a slim slice of nothingness. And maybe it had been easy to live in a vacuum before, but it is starting to dawn on Alex that when she hits pause on her life, it does not magically stop everyone else’s.

 _Maggie will want to continue living._  Alex thinks as she slams on her helmet.

After the rain, the skies are clear and a number of stars are visible overhead. She takes a deep breath, letting the cold air fill her lungs. It is a good feeling. Then, she kicks off her bike into National City’s almost non-existent morning traffic.

xxx

What follows is the worst week of Alex’s life.

Well, at least  _one_  of them, anyway. Particularly, after her encounter with Maggie when she had been on her way to Kara’s apartment.

“Alex, I need my dental night guard and my toothbrush.”

“Kara. You can’t remember where you and Mon-El were when we found the body, except that you were together and you woke up with a headache,” she points her finger at Mon-El, narrowing her eyes at him.

 _He_  is being dodgy. Alex is sure that he knows more than he is telling them.

“And let’s not forget that what appears to be  _your_  blood was at the crime scene,” she puts her hands on her hips and looks at her sister in disbelief, “and you’re concerned about your toothbrush?”

Kara looks at the floor, mumbles, “superheroes have perfect teeth.”

Alex just stares at her.

Kara bats her lashes, “please?”

“Why can you  _not_  sleep without it?”

“I grind my teeth at night, Alex. You know that. It gives me really bad headaches,” she looks truly miserable and a bit ashamed to be asking. “And it’s not like you're doing anything just now? You’ve just been staring at your phone, hoping that Maggie writes to you while you wait for the results.” She perks up a bit, “I could go if you guys would let me? It would only take a second to get-,”

Alex snaps at her, frustrated. “I don’t think you understand how serious this is? If somehow you’ve been involved in this? Do you understand what it would mean?”

“I know,” Kara relents. “But, Alex. I just, I don’t know. I can  _feel_  it. I had nothing to do with this,” she whispers.

“Kara.”

“Please?” she pleads. “I couldn’t sleep at all last night.”

And there it is, the vulnerability.

Alex knows that regardless of how calm she is trying to appear, Kara must be sick with worry. She can only imagine what headaches she must be giving herself.

And with that realisation, comes the brain tricking, the sudden ranking of importance. The mental shifting that somehow, means that Alex ends up getting in a DEO car, at a ridiculous hour in the morning, and making her way to Kara’s.

And because the strings of Alex’s life have this way of twisting into themselves and then tightening into a rope that loops around her neck, Maggie is waiting for her outside the DEO.  _Of course she is._

Alex recognises her car as soon as she sees it.

She panics. She cannot tell her what is going on. She cannot let Maggie follow her to Kara’s apartment. But she is too tired to come up with a convincing story, and she never wants to lie to Maggie, anyway.

She stops a few blocks down the road, parks in an empty street.

It does not go well. With Maggie.

In fact, it goes terribly wrong.

She is inarticulate, too exhausted to make any sense. When Maggie gets upset about being pulled out of the case, she basically threatens to pull rank on her. Only then, fully aware of how much she is messing things up, does Alex try to reach out, but Maggie steps out of the car before Alex can really attempt to mend things.

Alex does not allow herself to think about  _any of it_.

She has work to do.

And if she stops and thinks about the look of betrayal on Maggie’s face when she figured out it had been Alex’s people who wiped out the files?

Yeah, if she thinks about that, Alex might not be able to function.

xxx

It still takes her almost 48 additional hours of non-stop work to properly synthesise and reverse-engineer the molecules. Time enough for J’onn to get Mon-El to confess to having convinced Kara to split some ‘laughing mushrooms’ between the two of them.

“What were you  _thinking_?” Alex accuses. She asks both Kara and Mon-El, balancing on the edge between disappointment and anger.

Kara looks at the floor. Mon-El shrugs his shoulders, “I wasn’t thinking anything. A guy gave them to me and said it would make me laugh,” he explains. Then, he looks at Kara, “I would never hurt you, Kara, you know that.”

Kara does not look at him.

“I actually ate a few with him when he gave them to me, and it was ok. Just a bit of-, I don’t know, kinda like a tickling feeling. I swear it.” This, he says to Alex and J’onn.

“Are you freaking kidding me,” Alex gets in his face. “I don’t want you around Kara,  _ever_.”

J’onn grabs Alex gently by the shoulder. “Let me deal with this.” It is as threatening as Alex or Kara have ever heard him. They see Mon-El wince as J’onn grabs him by the arm, dragging him to another room.

Alex turns to Kara. She is disappointed in her.

“I’m sorry,” Kara whispers. “This is all my fault. I cannot even remember it. It must had affected me more than him,” she shakes her head, “I don’t know what happens to me when I’m around him. I keep making these terrible decisions.”

Alex opens her mouth to reply, but just then, her phone pings loudly, the volume set to maximum, with Alex desperate  _not_  to miss any potential attempts to reach out from Maggie.

Kara sees Alex face shift from anger, to excitement, and as soon as she checks the screen, to disappointment.

“Not Maggie, is it?”

“No,” Alex smiles tiredly. “It’s the results. Let me go and check them.”

xxx

“It’s not Kara’s,” she breathes.

Winn knocks his head on the table. “Wha-, what?” He says as he rubs some spit from the side of his mouth. He had been half asleep, his head resting on the table, neck at an unfortunate angle.

“This! The molecules are not a match,” Alex says, voice stronger.

“Kara!” she says loudly. Kara uses her super speed and appears at Alex’s shoulder in the blink of an eye. “It’s not yours.”

Kara grabs the results and pretends like she can read through them, “I told you so,” she smiles.

Alex smiles in relief. “You did. Oh, god,” she feels so relieved, she almost sobs with it.

“But you had a match?”

Alex nods, “yes, but the algorithm classifies anything above 95% coincidence as a match,” she explains. “It’s a probabilistic match, based on the underlying distributional properties of the data, assuming a normal distribution. So it is not a perfect match. The traces we got from Maggie’s boots must have been synthesised, cloned from a sample of your blood, but it is  _not_ your blood.”

Winn pipes in, “I understand the technical details, but what does it mean?”

“It means someone has tried to clone Kara’s blood, at a molecular level, but they probably only had access to her DNA profile, and not to her whole genome sequence.” She turns to her data and points at something on the screen. “My best guess is that they filled in the missing bits using Mon-El’s data, most of the missing % appears to be a mix between a match to his profile and some very smart guesses.”

“Ok, Alex, but what does that mean,” Kara repeats.

“It means you didn't do it. You've been framed,” she turns to Winn. “Did they also try to frame Mon-El?”

Winn’s eyes open wide, “or was he involved?”

xxx

Mon-El only vaguely remembers the place where he bought the mushrooms. Alex cannot believe him. Just precisely what kind of life is he leading that such a detail blurs into the background of his day-to-day?

 _What does Kara even_ see _in him?_

They need to find the person who sold him the mushrooms.

It is time to get Maggie Sawyer involved.

It has been four days since they last saw each other. Alex has spent, between tests results, quite a bit of time staring at their history of messages, and also, online shopping for leather ankle boots. She has narrowed it down to just two options. Both of them off-black, one black olive, the other one Charleston green.

Yeah.  _That_  is the state of her mind.

“Maggie?” She cringes internally as she hears how nervous she sounds.

“Danvers,” a pause, “it’s been a while.”

“I know, Maggie, and I’m sorry, more than I can say,” Alex speaks fast, relieved that Maggie has picked up, but also worried that she may hang up on her, “I promise I’m going to explain everything.”

Maggie is quiet for a couple of seconds. “Ok. I’m listening.”

Alex throat closes on her and when she takes a breath to speak, she chokes on it and ends up coughing for a few seconds.

“Are you ok?” Maggie asks.

“Yes, yes.” Then, she explains the details as she knows them. How Supergirl’s cloned blood was planted on the crime scene, and how someone sold Mon-El drugged mushrooms that could affect aliens. Probably the kind of drugs that would kill a human on contact. Not something that would be easy to find, even in the black market. Whoever sold it to him must have had contacts in the alien underground. Someone at Maggie’s ‘dive bar,’ possibly.

Alex refrains from calling it a dive bar.  _Barely._  Winn calls it the gaylien bar, but Winn’s an idiot.

Maggie is mostly quiet, but she agrees to meet her at the police station later that afternoon.

When she gets there, Alex feels shy and tentative, she does not know if she can hug Maggie. She wants to kiss her, touch her in some way.

“Good to see you, Danvers,” Maggie smiles, happy to see Alex. But she is stubborn. Admittedly, it is not her best trait. So she lets the desk remain between them when she stands up. “I have Rivers on #2 and Merry on #3, they were the officers who arrived first at the crime scene.”

“You think they were involved?”

“I don’t trust Rivers,” Maggie says as she leads the way to the interrogation rooms. “Leia Martin, down in tech, was allowed to snoop into their bank accounts,” she passes Alex a folder. “Here, look at this.”

Officer Rivers has just received a transfer of $50,000.

“Could he be such an idiot?” Alex asks.

“Wait until you meet him.”

xxx

It soon becomes obvious that Rivers is hiding something. He is confrontational and arrogant, but also, vague in his answers, in a way a police officer cannot afford to be.

When Alex and Maggie step out of the room, Alex gets on the phone with Winn. “Get me a court order to search his car, his office, his underwear, everything,” she barks into the phone. She turns to Maggie. “I bet we can find traces of Supergirl’s blood on him, he must’ve planted it at the scene.”

Maggie nods and turns to walk down the corridor.

Alex reaches for her hand, tangling their fingers together.

It makes Maggie’s stomach settle low on her body. She stops; looks at Alex.

Alex points a thumb at the closed door, “is he the one who hurt you?”

Maggie looks at her for a long time. “I told you. He didn’t hurt me.”

Alex just stares back, “he called you Sanchez.”

“He’s a racist ass.” 

A murderous look crosses Alex’s face as she turns towards the door, hand reaching for the handle, but Maggie pulls at their joined hands.

“Come on,” Maggie says. “We have bigger fish to fry.”

She pulls again on Alex’s hand, trying to drag her away from the door. But if it had ever come a time when it became obvious to Maggie that Alex is much bigger and stronger than she is, this is  _it_. She fails to move Alex even an inch.

“Alex.”

It is the first time Maggie has called her Alex since she left her in her bed that fateful night when the first results came in.

Alex blinks and looks at her. “Ok, but I’m coming back for him.”

Maggie smiles at her, “we both are, but later.”

“Later.”

xxx

The case unfolds fairly quickly after that.

The money transfer can be traced back to a man and a small pharmaceutical firm tied to Cadmus. They got in touch with Rivers, using his xenophobia and greed against him, and convinced him to plant the blood over the corpse of the alien. Apparently, she had been dead already, cryogenized. Alex would have figured that out sooner, if she had not been so focused on unraveling the puzzle about Kara’s blood.

They have had Mon-El under surveillance, waiting for him to use the mushrooms. They had initially wanted to frame him for it, spread bad blood and mistrust among the aliens living in National City, but they had quickly shifted gears when they saw the opportunity to frame Supergirl instead.

Fortunately, Kara’s blood replication was not as refined as Mon-El’s. His samples are perfect matches. To a point Alex cannot explain with human technology.

Maggie does most of the actual police work. Finds the lab, guides Alex and her team there.

Does not really speak to Alex except in a completely professional manner.

“You want to get something to eat when we finish here?” Alex asks.

Maggie looks at her. “Rain check? I’m a bit tired today.”

“Sure, yeah, of course,” Alex rambles. “Take care, ok? Get some sleep, you don’t look well,” a wince. “I mean you look great, beautiful as-, as always. Yeah.”

“Alex,” Maggie smiles kindly at her. Stops the stream of consciousness. “We’ll talk really soon, ok?” She knows she is being stubborn and needs to get over it. Be a bigger person. It does not come easy.

“Of course, yes, yes,” Alex tries to smile back, but she is not sure if she succeeds.

When she gets home, Alex has a package from Amazon waiting. It is the leather boots she has bought online for Maggie.

That night, she struggles to fall sleep. The box with the boots sits on her kitchen island, wrapped in dark blue paper and way too much cellophane tape.

xxx

“Well, all’s well that ends well,” Kara smiles at Alex. They are at Kara’s apartment, sitting on the sofa, surrounded by empty take-out containers and what is left of a mostly demolished pizza. Alex has struggled to get through her one slice.

"Don’t think you are out of the doghouse,” Alex warns.

“I know, I’m so sorry, Alex. I think I finally learned my lesson... not to trust Mon-El.” Kara admits as she gets ready for Alex to lecture her.

She knows she deserves it.

But, for once, Alex wants to talk about  _her own life_. “I think I messed things up with Maggie,” she confides.

“What?”

“I screwed up, Kara,” she cannot stop the tears that come to her eyes. “I was so upset about you being missing, I didn't know how to talk to Maggie, because she doesn't know about you, and I just-,” a sob chokes her for a moment. She pushes it down. “I was secretive, and, and an idiot. And now she’s not talking to me.”

"Hey," Kara hugs her close. "I'm so sorry, Alex. I just keep finding ways to spoil things for you, don’t I?”

"No. It's not your fault, Kara. I thought it was the gay thing, but maybe I'm just not cut out to have relationships with anyone, you know?"

"Alex."

She shrugs and rises from the couch. "You're safe now. That’s what matters.”

And if Alex says that a thousand times, maybe the idea of losing Maggie will start to hurt less.

“I think I’m going to go home, I need to clean my apartment.”

Kara follows her to the door, an arm around Alex’s shoulders. "You care a lot about her, don’t you? Just-, just talk to her, all right? You can tell her about me."

Alex is startled by that. It is the first time Kara has given her explicit permission to tell anyone. She shakes her head. “That’s sweet, Kara, thanks. But I don’t know that that’s the biggest issue," Alex says tiredly.

xxx

She has just changed into her pyjamas when there is a knock at the door.

_Maggie._

“Maggie. Hi,” she smiles. “I’m so glad to see you. Please, come in.”

“Thanks, I wanted to talk to you.”

Alex feels her heart stop, and then, start beating wildly in her chest: bird in a cage.

 _Maggie is here to break up with me. Let me down gently_.

She feels a thousand words claw their way up her throat. They are all the things she has not said yet, all the things she may not get a chance to say at all, now.

“I’m sorry. Forgive me?” Alex pleads.

It startles Maggie from whatever it is she wanted to say. She takes a step closer, “forgive you? For what?”

“I pulled you out of the case and then, I didn’t call you or talk to you for too long, and I-,” she rubs her forehead. “Won’t you take a seat, please?”

Maggie nods. She walks around Alex and sits in one of the stools facing the kitchen island. She removes her leather jacket and places it on the stool to her right. She is wearing a dark grey Henley and blue jeans. Alex cannot stop herself from stealing a long look at her, the pull of attraction as intense as ever.

She relaxes somewhat when she sees Maggie take off her jacket.

It means  _something_.

Maybe it just means that it is too warm in her apartment, but still, Maggie must not be so uncomfortable that she cannot bear to sit down, or that she wants to be ready to run out of the door any minute.

“You don’t know everything about my job,” Alex says. “There are things, well, things that I’m not free to divulge,” she takes a breath. Time to tell  _some_  of the truth. “I-, there is something, a big thing that involves  _me_ , and that I haven’t told you,” a pause, “but, Maggie, it’s not my secret to tell.”

Maggie regards her carefully, making eye contact. “I told you what my ex said to me, didn’t I? Why she left me?”

Alex nods.

“We never really talked about it, because,” Maggie rolls her eyes, “well, because I haven’t thought about her in ages, but it was because I was too obsessed with work. I missed too many important dates. She called me insensitive and hard-headed,” Maggie shrugs, “and you know? she was probably right. I-, sometimes, I can get into a funk, and it takes a while until I get out of it. Or you may be in a bad mood and I may not notice it. I have had relationships in the past, Alex, but I’m not used to working through things with anyone else. To letting anyone else in.”

As Maggie speaks, Alex tries to discreetly move her own stool as close as possible to Maggie’s, without appearing like she wants to sit on her lap.

Maggie watches her in amusement, “you’re not super subtle, for a secret agent, Danvers, did you know that?”

Alex huffs, stands up, and moves to stand next to Maggie. “I just want to be close to you, is that ok?”

“Of course it is,” Maggie nods.

And once Alex is so close, it is only a matter of seconds before their hands are entangled together.

“I can be stubborn, and I’m not going to lie. I  _wanted_  to be in the loop,” Maggie smiles. “You guys get to do all the cool stuff, right?”

_And damn it._

All these years out of Nowhere, Nebraska just to find that she still wants to be one of the cool kids. She really thought she had grown out of it, but here she is, with this unexpected baggage.

“I guess I'm trying to say that I'm sorry for being so cold these last few days. You didn't deserve it. We-, I, need to learn to communicate better.” Maggie says at last.

Alex opens her eyes wide.

"Then, you still like me?” 

Maggie feels a laugh burst out of her. “Of course I like you.”

Maggie regards her fondly. She  _knew_. That they would come to this. To a number of forks down the road. And this  _is_ kind of a big deal, what went down these last few days between them; because they are both stubborn and proud and they are both career-oriented women, and their professional and personal lives have become entangled in a high so sweet that the emptiness Maggie felt when Alex cut her off had threatened to suffocate her.

Maggie was awake most of the previous night, thinking. Just thinking.

She only came to one conclusion: she wants Alex in her life. More than she wants anything else in life. And so she promised herself to make things right. To learn to separate their working and personal lives.

She can respect that, sometimes, Alex will not be able to involve her in her work.

It is just so  _exhilarating_  to work with Alex.

Maggie is addicted to it.

And of course Maggie  _knew_ , going in, that being in a relationship with Alex Danvers was not going to be easy. She knew it would take risking her heart. Risk and return, her econ professor in college had explained: Risk big, win big. And yeah, sometimes, lose big. 

“I-, I more than like you, Alex.” Maggie whispers, reaching up to kiss Alex’s cheek. Then, she whispers, “but what's important here is that I trust you.”

Alex smiles so big she must look like a loon. "You do?"

Maggie also smiles. "Whatever it is that you're not telling me? I trust you. Maybe you can learn to trust me a bit more, too, going forward?"

"Going forward," Alex promises and throws herself at Maggie, almost bowling her over. Maggie manages to right herself just in time, knocking a dark blue box into the floor on the process.

"You  _did_  warn me that you were going to go crazy on me."

Alex just hugs her tightly, arms around her shoulders, head finding its way into her warm neck, breathing her in.

She laughs wetly, "I did."

Maggie feels strong against her. Solid. Real. Someone to lean on. For a moment, she feels so light-headed, her knees buckle and Maggie has to hold up most of her weight.

"You’re far too heavy for me to carry," she warns with a laugh.

"Sorry," Alex says, voice rough.

Maggie just hugs her. They stay like that for a long time.

When they finally separate, Alex says. “I missed you.”

“Me too.”

“Let’s never do that again,” Alex says, “can you stay for a bit? We can order some food, maybe watch a movie?“

“I’d like that.”

xxx

They end up snuggling together on one corner of the sofa, eating Chinese take-away and watching the news.

“I have something for you,” Alex says as she disentangles herself from Maggie and gets the dark blue box. Smoothing one corner, “we dropped it to the floor before,” Alex says as she hands her the box. “But the contents should be fine.”

Maggie looks at the box. It looks like it has been wrapped up by an over-excited eight year old, using half a roll of cellophane tape.

“I see your skills don’t lie in retail, Danvers.”

“Oh, shut up,” she laughs. She fits her body against Maggie’s, “I picked the paper myself.”

“It’s a very pre-,” Maggie gets quiet as she sees the boots. They are identical to the ones she ruined. Same brand, same colour. “How did you find these?”

“Google and Amazon.”

Maggie is quiet for a long time, looking at the boots. “It’s too much. I don’t know what to say.”

“Do you like them?”

“I do,” Maggie kisses her then. Alex just melts into Maggie. Desperate for her.

It is a while before they speak again.

That night, when they settle in bed and Maggie cuddles into her back, arms around her waist, she asks, “Alex, where was Kara all of last week?”

FIN.


End file.
